I got called at work today by one of the executors in Wisconsin. He was asking whether I had gotten and filled out the W9 they had sent, which I did. It was to get me in "the system" and probably to make sure that I existed. I told him about the irony of that letter and the SSN card from the lawyer. He got a kick out of it.
It was a good opportunity to ask a few questions.
The list of funds and fee structure they sent me was for information and CYA purposes. They have been picking up and rolling in little savings accounts from mom and dad into a money market sweep account, ie a money "bucket". The original account of mom's that started sister's grudge with the bank, well, the bank executors needed a court order to roll it in and put into the bucket. I'll have to mention it to sister that it was nothing personal. Even the bank needed industrial strength legal means to get at it, and it was one of their own accounts.
The executor asked whether I knew anything about an insurance policy grampa got for mom when mom was one. Yep, no one threw anything away, and luckily it looked insurance-y enough that we stuck it in a file. I didn't know anything.
He asked about the Employees Trust piece of mail. Sister got it too and was asking about that. We mused a bit on where mom must have worked to get it - he thought she had to be a teacher, I knew that she had worked at the public library, and I think that was where it came from. I explained that I had filled it out and sent it back and that it looked like they were searching for beneficiaries. The executor told me that he'll have to explore this a bit further - it'll go to us but if a beneficiary was not named it should go through dad's estate bucket first.
Later that day I missed another Wisconsin call (I was in a meeting with my boss.). Sister later emailed me the land assessment had come in. Zoned agricultural and at 4K/acre, but I think that there are 3 estimates. Wonder which one they used? I could tell from the email that sister wasn't thrilled.
I get the feeling everyone's going to call me tomorrow.
The bucket
October 20th, 2005 at 03:40 am